Layoffs Have Slowed, Hiring Has Picked Up, But Jobless Claims Are Higher

Update at 8:40 a.m. ET. Jobless Claims Went Up; So Two Out Of Three Reports Were Positive:

There were 372,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, up by 10,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration says. What's more, that previous week's total was revised up from the previous estimate of 350,000.

The relatively negative news about jobless claims means that two out of this morning's three employment-related reporters were positive. As we reported earlier, the ADP National Employment Report showed a much larger than expected gain of 215,000 jobs in private sector payrolls last month. Also, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that the number of layoffs announced in 2012 was the lowest for any year since 1997.

Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is due to release the week's big employment report. It will tell us what the unemployment rate was in December and how many jobs were added to payrolls last month.

According to Bloomberg News, economists expect to hear that there were 150,000 jobs added to public and private payrolls in December — about the same as the 146,000 added in November. They also expect to hear that the nation's unemployment rate stated at 7.7 percent.

Update at 8:20 a.m. ET. Hiring Picked Up In December:

The morning's second employment-related report also brings at least modestly good news.

And ADP revised up its figure on growth in November, to a gain of 148,000 jobs — vs. its original estimate of 118,000.

The ADP report, a private survey done by that company and Moody's Analytics, is sometimes a sign of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics will say when it releases its figures on monthly job growth. As we said earlier, BLS is due to release its December data on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

We'll update this post again when we see the figures on last week's claims for unemployment benefits. They're due at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Our original post:

There's some good news this morning about the labor market.

The number of layoffs announced by U.S. companies plunged in December, a new report signals. Also, the number of layoffs announced in 2012 was the lowest for any year since 1997.

-- "After three consecutive months of increased layoff activity, the number of planned job cuts announced in December plunged to 32,556, the second lowest monthly total of 2012" and down from 57,081 in November.

-- "Due in large part to the slow pace of downsizing in the third quarter, annual job cuts totaled 523,362, which is the lowest year-end total since 1997, when employers announced 434,350 job cuts during the year. The 2012 total was 14 percent lower than the 606,082 job cuts announced in 2011."

-- " 'We have not seen this [lower] level of job cutting since before the dot.com collapse and subsequent 2001 recession,' said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas."

Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is due to report on the December unemployment rate and job growth that month.